Monterey Jazz Festival

Getting ready for the third – and final – day of the 2010 Austin City Limits Music Festival. My dogs are definitely barking. Loud. But I’m trying to conjure the energy to battle the masses (75,000 per day!) one more time. What a great time it’s been.

Today’s big headliner is the Eagles. So, I’m less excited about today than I’ve been about the two previous days: Phish on Friday; Muse/M.I.A. on Saturday. Still, like everyday at ACL, there is plenty worth catching on Sunday. Continue Reading →

That’s what it is: Monterey’s organizers, designing tonight’s climax/conclusion to the festival, have made it virtually impossible to see the two musicians everyone wants to see -– Ahmad Jamal and Roy Haynes. We must choose between the two.

At 9 p.m., Jamal -– who is 80; who virtually designed the template for the modern jazz rhythm section back in the 1950s; and who has never before performed at Monterey -– takes the stage in the Arena. (His band includes the very wonderful drummer Herlin Riley).

At 9:30 p.m., Haynes -– who is 85; who plays like a 30 year-old; who without much dispute is the greatest living jazz drummer, certainly the most historically important -– takes the stage at Dizzy’s Den, at the opposite end of the fairgrounds, with his Fountain of Youth Band.

Anyone who begins with Jamal in the Arena will NOT find a decent seat for Haynes, and probably won’t even get into the venue. Anyone who starts with Haynes, will miss Jamal.

Having seen Haynes’ performance with Chick Corea’s Freedom Band last night — outrageously excellent, funny and inspiring; how is it POSSIBLE that he still plays like this? — I’ll probably skip Roy to see Ahmad. But it hurts.

Today’s the third and final day of the Monterey Jazz Festival. The gates open at 11 a.m., and you know what that means: It’s time to print out your schedule. Every day, mine turns into a calligraphic nightmare, as I scrawl my notations about whether, if I see this over here, it’ll be possible to catch a bit of that over there, and so on.

If you need a break from the music, happening on eight stages around the Monterey County Fairgrounds, there will be a full afternoon of conversations at Dizzy’s Den.

At noon, the Jazz Journalists Association is presenting a panel discussion titled “Are Jazz Musicians Trading Touring for Tenure?” The hypothesis is that, given the poor economy and declining CD sales, the big record deal that once stamped “approved” on an artist has largely vanished. With the deal and the attendant touring gone, jazz musicians now (if they’re very very lucky) get “approved” by landing teaching gigs at the many jazz programs proliferating at colleges and conservatories around the country. More and more schools have such programs, and they keep turning out more and more passionate but unemployed jazz musicians. A strange situation, though perhaps not as strange as it seems.

Going back to the early 1970s, most of the jazz musicians I’ve known have been generally unemployed, or under-employed. In the old days, they worked day jobs in the post office. Or they scruffed for the little bit of grant money that was starting to become available; I remember, as a college kid, hurriedly typing up a grant application for Hamiet Bluiett. Probably, he didn’t get a dime. (I was a pretty sloppy typist). Plus, record deals didn’t pay much and royalties didn’t amount to much; being a jazz musician has always been a difficult line of work. It’s always meant living an improvised life, I suppose. What’s different today is that the music, more than ever, exists on the margins of a homogenized media culture. And yet, every year, 50,000 people show up for the Monterey Jazz Festival. It’s all a big confusion to me, the whole discussion of jazz as a vanishing culture. Anyway, participating in today’s panel are pianists Taylor Eigsti, Fred Hersch and Mark Levine, and guitarist David Gilmore.

Other conversations: The amazing Roy Haynes discusses his 85 years of living with Yoshi Kato at 2 p.m. And if you saw Haynes on stage last night with Chick Corea — Roy plays as if he’s still in his 30s, sitting in with Coltrane — you will want to hear his stories. Finally, at 4 p.m., there will be a conversation with Sam Stephenson from the Jazz Loft Project.

Musically speaking, Sunday afternoon, as is the case each year, will find a gaggle of top high school ensembles performing in the Night Club. At 1:10 p.m. in the Arena, the festival’s own Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, an all-star high school big band, will perform with the great singer Dianne Reeves. At 2:40 p.m., vocalist Angelique Kidjo follows with her own all-star group: Christian McBride, Lionel Loueke, Kendrick Scott and Mino Cinelu.

Other afternoon performers, on the Garden Stage, include the Le Boeuf Brothers and George Wein’s Newport All-Stars. And then we’re on to the final evening: Harry Connick Jr., Ahmad Jamal, Kim Nalley with Houston Person, Dianne Reeves again, Roy Haynes again, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Javon Jackson and Les McCann, Fred Hersch and so on.

Part I: Pianist Billy Childs began his Arena set with his jazz quartet; no string quartet in sight. Just Childs, saxophonist Steve Wilson, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade.

How to describe this music? Intense, melodically ravishing and (like all the best music I’ve heard so far at the festival) clear — ego-less. With personalities out of the way, it was almost as if you could see the music, which became this living, magnetic thing. Childs writes perfectly crafted tunes, but they go beyond that; you could hear his all-star band mates responding to their mystery. I’ve never heard Wilson play this passionately.

Part II: Childs brought out the Kronos Quartet for “Music for Two Quartets,” the first-ever performance of this 20-minute, multi-movement work, commissioned by the festival.

Childs as a pianist thinks orchestrally and he writes for the string quartet almost as an extension of the piano — all sorts of gleaming, shimmering textures and colors, and lots of jolting rhythmic material.

The piece got off to a bit of a rocky start — a low plane flew overhead during a quiet passage for the strings, and the cool night air seemed to be causing tuning problems for the string players. Still, this was a terrific collaboration. All eight musicians were drawn more and more into the vortex of the performance; it was such a gas to see violinist David Harrington responding to the exuberance of Blade — and to watch Blade turn up the heat in response to Kronos. I especially loved a passage scored for flute, strings and piano — such colors. Yeah, Billy!

The sun is out and, man, the festival is crowded. Feels good; very mellow and easy, as this festival has a way of bringing people together. Every year, it feels like a community.

Speaking of which, I’ve been stretching my legs, walking the grounds. And in the picnic area over by the main gate, I ran into the great bassist Ray Drummond, who lived in the Monterey area for many years and has purchased Arena tickets for 37 consecutive festivals. He thinks of it as a community event; Ray isn’t even performing this year, but he’s flown back once again from New Jersey. He speaks of his Arena section up near the stage and over to the left as if it were an actual neighborhood. After nearly 40 years in the same spot, he said, he’s watched folks grow old. Some have passed away, replaced by a new generation. It’s “really changed,” he said, laughing. Ray is obviously attached to the festival — loves not only the music, but the people and the whole feeling of the event. It was a pleasure, having a chance to chat with Ray Drummond, one of the greatest bassists of the past 40 years, always a joy to hear.

One more quick report: Just caught part of a set in the Coffee House Gallery by Bulgarian (and San Jose-based) guitarist Hristo Vitchev. Flowing and prismatic music; intricate, but accessible compositions. Enjoyed it.

I’m now heading over to Dizzy’s Den, where George Wein, 84 year-old pianist and founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, will be in conversation with writer Andrew Gilbert.

That didn’t take long. About three minutes into his set, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews had the Arena crowd — just about a full house — on its feet, playing his nouveau New Orleans funk.

Shorty has charisma. Did you see him on Letterman? He’s in his mid-’20s and has a killer six-piece band behind him. He sings, plays wild trombone (naturally), and trumpet, too. He’ll pick up the trumpet, and — in the middle of a funk tune — will start soloing like Armstrong, stratospherically riffing on “West End Blues.” The whole New Orleans lineage is amazing. It just keeps going; Katrina is irrelevant.

An elegant woman with a voice that could strip paint, Naomi Shelton is just wrapping up her set on the Arena stage, singing to thousands. The crowd is still waking up, though: Some folks are reading newspapers to the rock-steady beat. Others are lifting hands in sanctified gestures, and quite a few are dancing as Shelton and the Gospel Queens, as she calls her group, sing “One More River to Cross,” “I’ll Take the Long Road” and “O Lord, I Need You to Hold My Hand.”

She has three other singers in the band and a tight rhythm section anchored by Fred Thomas, James Brown’s old bass player. He’s a gentleman with a trim white beard and an infallible groove.

And the sun keeps peeking through the clouds. Day Two is off to a promising start.

OK, the gates opened an hour ago. The runways are filling up with music-thirsty fans.

Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens will kick-start the day’s activities at 1 p.m. Then we’re off and running, with dozens of acts on eight stages. The day should finish, around midnight, with a couple of teaching elders, 80 year-old Ahmad Jamal on the Arena stage, and 85 year-old Roy Haynes in Dizzy’s Den.

The morning drizzle and fog, normal state of affairs, is lingering here in Monterey. But the forecast calls for mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the 60s today, ideal jazz-listening weather. The gates over at the fairgrounds will open at 11:30 a.m.

I say “jazz-listening” weather, though Saturday afternoon (the music starts at 1 p.m.) is typically the time when the festival backs off the jazz and casts a wider net with gospel and blues and New Orleans funk. Last year, the festival went way outside the box, bringing in 90 year-old Pete Seeger for a sold-out Saturday afternoon show in the Arena. No such icons this year, though the Arena program looks interesting: Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens (Fred Thomas, James Brown’s old bassist, is in the band); Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and Orleans Avenue; and country-R&B-bluesman Delbert McClinton. (This morning, I learned something interesting about McClinton. The festival program says he played that unforgettable harmonica riff on “Hey! Baby,” the Top 40 hit that poured out of so many millions of transistor radios in 1962. Remember?)

If you don’t have Arena tickets (it’s cheaper to stick with the many venues out on the grounds), Shelton and Shorty also will perform later this afternoon on the Garden Stage. Other afternoon highlights: San Jose-based guitarist Hristo Vitchev and his quartet; bassist Lisa Mezzacappa’s Bait & Switch; the Berklee Global Jazz Institute Septet — and George Wein, octogenarian founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, in conversation with jazz writer Andrew Gilbert. (Wein, who has stories to tell, also will perform Sunday afternoon — as a pianist, on the Garden Stage with his own Newport All-Stars).

I’m looking forward to tonight, when the jazz storms back in at full strength. I’m not an Arena fan; too vast, noisy and generally anti-intimate. (I’m just not a stadium guy; haven’t seen Springsteen since he played the Bottom Line, the New York club where he made his breakthrough). Still, tonight’s Arena show looks hard to beat: pianist Billy Childs’ Quartet (with Steve Wilson, Scott Colley and, ooo boy, the great Brian Blade on drums) teaming with the Kronos Quartet to perform Childs’ new composition “Music for Two Quartets,” commissioned by the festival; plus the sublime singer Dianne Reeves; and Chick Corea’s Freedom Band with Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride and, oooooh boy, drummer Roy Haynes.

Out on the grounds, there will be still more fabulismo performers: singer Gretchen Parlato; saxophonist Chris Potter; pianist Gerald Clayton and his trio; the Septeto Nacional de Cuba; Childs’ Quartet, alone (at 11 p.m. in Dizzy’s Den); and Kronos, alone (10:30 p.m. in the Night Club).